There’s a perception that data in a cloud should provide all-the-time, unlimited availability. Perhaps this is because the concept of a natural cloud is one of unlimited expansion, but the reality is that any time a server goes down, whether it’s scheduled or unexpected, there will be a temporarily decrease in the availability of accessible data. Because of the varied roles these information storage giants play from housing operational information and technology and hosting the network and computer system, the lack of availability, even for a short time, can feel like a potential disaster in the making.

Businesses are increasingly turning to the growing trend of colocation and outsourcing to a data center rather maintaining one onsite. Why? Because an in-house operation can be much more costly to maintain and cause IT problems that many companies are not experienced in dealing with.

Todd Taylor, Vice President of Hosted Technologies with NetStandard, has more than 20 years of experience in adapting and applying technology services for business environments, including web-based architectures, server virtualization, SQL Server administration, data center design and network engineering.